Easy and quick, crisp pizza made from scratch. No kneading necessary!

You won’t want to order pizza once you start making your own! When you want to try baking something with yeast, pizza is one of the friendliest recipes you could try. And this particular recipe doesn’t require much by way of technique because there is no kneading involved in this recipe. We will simply mix all the dough ingredients together, pat it onto the pan, rest it and then bake it. Your pizza will be ready in no time at all! The first and most important thing would be using good quality yeast and knowing how to use your yeast. If you have never used yeast before, please watch this video on different types of yeast and how to use your yeast.

Before we start making the pizza, we need to make sure the sauce is ready, the tomato sauce, and we have some mozzarella cheese here. I like to use Amul. And we have some fresh basil leaves here. You could also make the sauce the previous day and refrigerate it if it is more convenient to you. But please do not use sauce from a bottle as it would totally ruin the experience. Please do not do that. So before we make the dough ready, we need to keep our pans ready. I am using these simple aluminum pans, these measure about 10 inches in diameter. You could find these in any departmental store nearby. We will first grease these pans with some extra virgin olive oil. About a teaspoon(5 ml) oil per pan. Please do not be stingy here, we need this amount of oil here. We need the crust really crisp and we also need the pizza to come out of the pan easily.

So grease it thoroughly and really well. You could either make 2 large pizzas or 3 smaller ones. So you could use any size pan which fits your oven. Only make sure it is something flat like this, so that you could slice the pizza easily and lift it from the tin easily. And once we have the pans ready, we can start making the dough. I have some instant yeast here in this large bowl here, we are going to be mixing the dough in this bowl. And there is some all purpose flour, and some salt and a tiny bit of sugar in this bowl. I have just mixed all of them together really well. And we have some extra virgin olive oil. You could use any normal regular cooking oil, but the extra virgin oil gives a really nice aroma to the pizza, so you might want to use extra virgin olive oil. Please do weigh and measure all ingredients very carefully because the consistency of the dough is very important here. If you add too much of water your dough may become very sticky and very difficult to handle. And adding too much of yeast can make your pizza smell funny! If you would be using active dried yeast, you would need to proof it first.

That is you need to add the warm water to this yeast and let it sit for about 10 minutes till it all frothy and bubbly. And then you add the rest of the ingredients. But since I am using instant yeast, I do not need to do that. I will just dump everything here and start mixing the dough. So we add some lukewarm water to the yeast here. The temperature of the water Is really important. If the water is too hot, it might kill the yeast. And if you are using instant yeast, you are safer, you could err on the side of the water being less warm.

Remember, if using active dried yeast, at this stage you need to leave it for about 10 minutes for the yeast to get activated and then continue with the rest of the procedure. Now we are going to be adding the oil. And then the rest of the ingredients. Just dump it in. Mix it first. This is going to be making a very soft and fairly sticky dough. You might at first think the dough is not coming together so you may need to add a little more water. But just mix it for a minute or so and the dough will come together, you don’t need to be adding lot more water. You could sprinkle a little bit of water if you think it is necessary and if it too dry. So now this is your dough. We need to stir this very energetically for about 20 strokes.

Like this. You could get somebody to help you with this. This would be the toughest part of making the pizza. And you will see the dough becoming a little more sticky. Now you need to grease your hands lightly. And then remove the dough from this bowl. You could also use a flexible plastic dough scraper to do this. Then we will also grease the counter lightly. And we will dump this dough here. Now we are going to be dividing this into 3 parts roughly.

You could also weigh the dough and divide to make sure you have the dough of the same quantity for each pizza. The best tool to cut the dough is a bench scraper, a metal one. And so now we have roughly 3 pieces. Now we have 3 pieces here to make 3 , eight inch pizzas. Now we will put this on the pan and start spreading this around. And if you find it difficult to spread the dough, you could leave it for about 5 minutes and then come back to the dough. It would have relaxed and it would be easier to spread it. After the dough has rested for 5 minutes on the pan, it is much more easier to stretch it and pull it. Use both your hands and then stretch it to make it about 8-9 inches in diameter. You can make it smaller if you want a thick and bready pizza. But I like my pizzas crisp and thin. Be sure to keep the thickness of the pizza uniform. Otherwise the crust might get burnt in some places. Especially the center, please , make sure it is not very thin. You can already see the bubbles here, the yeast is getting activated.

And now we will let this rest for about 30-40 minutes till the dough is kind of puffy and you can see lots of bubbles over the surface of the dough. You may have to rest the dough for about 30-40 minutes, the time may vary depending on the atmosphere and the temperature around. So if it is colder, it might take longer, if it is warmer it might take shorter time.

So at the end of 40 minutes, I am going to be pre-heating my oven to 250C, which is the maximum temperature in my oven. We need the oven to be really really hot. In case you would be using an OTG, you would have to start preheating earlier. Now I have a rather funny way of making my pizza, I like to bake the crust fully before I put the sauce and cheese on the pizza. After 40 minutes when the dough is all puffed up,we are going to be pricking the base. You do not want this to puff up in the oven and become soft or spongy. We want it crisp. So we are going to be pricking this. And then bake it for about 10-12 minutes at 250C. We need the edges to turn a light golden brown. And if you lift the pizza, the bottom should be a nice golden brown and it should be crisp. If you want vegetables on your pizza, after 40 minutes rest, you could stick in some thickly sliced onions and tomatoes or anything else you want. And then put it into the oven to bake.

The baking time again may vary depending on your oven and the thickness of the crust. So be really careful as you are baking at a very high temperature and the pizza may burn. After 40 minutes, I am going to be baking the crust. We will bake this for about 10-12 minutes. I will bake this for 10 minutes and if needed I will add 2 minutes more. So after 12 minutes I will be taking the crust out of the oven. Once you remove the crust out of the oven, it is going to be looking like this. It has to be golden brown around the edges. And you should be able to lift the pizza easily and will be crisp. Before we put the cheese and the tomato sauce, I want to make sure I am able to lift the pizza easily. Because once I put the sauce and the cheese I may not be able to do much about it. And then you should be able to lift it like this. And if you lift the pizza, it should be crisp and a nice golden brown at the bottom.

And so now we are going to be putting the sauce on the crust here. Now the basil and the cheese. Tear the basil. Now the cheese. I do not like the way the cheese turns very stretchy and chewy if I put it much ahead and bake. And while you load the pizza with the cheese and sauce, keep the oven on at 250C. And now we are going to be baking the pizza for about 2-3 minutes till the cheese melts. After 3 minutes we will take the pizza out.

The cheese has all melted now. And now we are going to be slicing the pizza immediately. We do not want to wait. You could also use a pair of scissors to cut the pizza. And now , lift it up. And put in on a serving plate, sprinkle on some oregano and some chili flakes if you wish to. And eat immediately without any delay. Please do bake the pizza and let me know how you liked it.